Adhoc distribution is a method that allows developers to distribute iPhone applications without using the AppStore. It’s primarily intended as a way to distribute beta/prerelease versions of applications, or for organizations who develop applications for internal use.

To install an AdHoc application you can follow the steps below on both Mac and PC. Note that this assumes you have received a zip file “Sample.zip” for an application named “Sample”.

1) If you have an existing version of this application, go to the “Applications” section of iPhone and delete it. (don’t worry, you can download it again for free from iTunes or the AppStore).

2) Unzip the contents of “Sample.zip”

3) On Mac you will have two files, on PC you will have one file and one folder. These will be called “Sample.app” and “XXXX.mobileprovision”. The XXXX refers to whatever name the developer chose for their Adhoc profile (I use Andrews_Adhoc_DP).

4) Open iTunes.

5) Select both “Sample.app” and XXXX.mobileprovision and drag them to the Library pane in iTunes as seen in the following screenshot:

6) In your Applications pane you should now see the application which can be synced with your phone.

And that’s it!

One thing to note is that if you encounter the error 0xE8000001 when syncing it means that iPhone does not think the application is allowed to be installed on your phone. This could be for any of the following reasons;

1) The developer did not add your UUID to the Adhoc certificate, or this change was not picked up by XCode when building the app.

2) You have an old certificate that’s conflicting.